Everything You Want: Understanding consumers, brands and communications

Everything You Want is a provocative guide to consumers, brands and marketing communication designed to help marketing managers unlock the secrets of the new branded consumer. The book argues that to do this we must reflect on the imbalanced relationship between us and the stuff we buy.Describing the invention of shopping and the rise of the branded consumer, Everything You Want shows how brand marketing has shaped consumers' perceptions, behaviour and identity and how this is changing. It bridges the gap between consumer fact (our experience of shopping) and brand fiction (the tall stories that brands tell us about their products or services).Everything You Want is designed to help the reader understand more about both the process and culture of brand marketing by taking new perspectives on an undulating brandscape of identity, aspiration and culture. Everything You Want's arguments are informed as much by philosophies that are opposed to traditional consumerism - including maverick ad man Howard Luck Gossage, Buddhists, nihilists and performance artists - as by traditional brand works and 'missionary position' consumer analysts.* Offers exciting and radical insights into the world of branding and consumers, bridging the gap between consumer fact and brand fiction.* Traces the history of branding and evaluates marketers' attempts to inject meaning and value into their brands.* Although it has a serious message, Everything You Want is presented in a lighthearted manner, with the authors casting a cold eye over what many consider a frivolous subject: brands and communication.